AltRaps Roundup February 20

Just about where I thought they would be. Sure, like always, they tease us a bit like a stripper with nice looking breasts, but then reality sets in when you look under the hood and things just flop out. My only worry is the toll the extended losing streak(s) are taking on the young guys. Sure they are smart kids and know the team just can’t keep up, but at the same time nobody likes losing and in this age of BBM, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, etc, you gotta know they are hearing it from their buddies. Just like you and I have to defend our love for this team to our sarcastic buddies, the players have to do it with professional ballers. Not the type of environment you want to be in.

Bryan Colangelo

Never have been a fan, never will be a fan, but where do we go? I’ll accept the argument that we have never been great because we have never gone into the tax. However, the buzz was he was told to make things right the past two years and if opportunities presented themselves that this team would go into that sacred ground. Where are we? Simple: a year after Bryan constructs what amounts to be a mini-version of his fantasy team with all his boys from the yard, we get to see Bayless, Weems, and a bunch of “well, you’re the only guy left, so we’ll take you” irregulars become regulars. The less than funny part of this is we are riding these guys into a lockout season where chances are good we will see less money being thrown around. Say what you will but BC loves to overspend on average talent and that is what has burned us. Giving this guy potentially less money to use on a shrinking talent pool will have us needing to hit the panic button. Bryan has never made this team better via the draft and has never had a trade that has turned into a slam dunk. Your name alone will not win you games.

DeMar DeRozan

Robbed my ass. Look, whenever you enter something as an underdog (and the league laughs at you by assigning a guy as your coach that is well over the hill and has no connection to the youth movement) you need to come out all guns ablazing. You should know this since it’s the second year in a row for you being under the lights. It’s no secret that the crowd, the judges, and the talking heads on TV eat gimmicks up like they were grilled cheese sandwiches at 4am. So what do you do for your first dunk? You bring out a teammate who couldn’t pass the ball to a wide open horse in a field that was 10 feet away from him on a sunny day with no wind to bounce the ball to you off the basket? Really? Nobody else was available? I know you guys hang out and play video games together like you are 12 year olds, but this is something being watched worldwide and being done in your hometown. You come up with THAT? Maybe if you hit it on your first attempt you’d deserve a higher mark and move on, but as you kept attempting it, all people thought was this is the first dunker of the night and what the hell are we in for? Your second dunk got the love it deserved, but too late. If you want to be the steak, you have to bring some sizzle. DeMar brought none. Oh, and for the record, Blake dunked across a car, not over it.

In Game Experience

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is happier that 4Korners is gone than I am. That said, the Raptors game experience still needs tweaking. I still feel like I’m watching a game from within a commercial. I come in the building and am visually assaulted by a video wall running ads, I get handed material pushing a team sponsor, I go to my seat and see rotating ads all around me, I turn to the screen for replays to see a logo in the corner….it’s just too much. I realize corporate sponsorship is where it’s at and it’s free money for every sports team, but leave the fans who purchased your tickets with hard earned money some sort of space. Even the entertainment has dropped. The Dance Pak is ugly as sin, they barely dance, and have been relegated to dressing like strippers and standing in the aisles behind a backboard for the late stretches of games. Not nearly as many fun and different contests on the court and the halftime shows are repetitive and dull. If you are going to whore yourselves out to sponsors, put some of that money back into rewarding the 11,000 people that are standing by you by giving them value. We understand the team will get better, but will the experience?

Jack Armstrong

Where would we be without this guy? I’m sure he is one of the lowest paid on air guys yet he brings it every night. We’ve needed to laugh during the games this year and outside of laughing at Leo for sport, Armstrong has made every game he’s on seem like a moral victory. You factor in how often he is travelling, his age, and having to work with a guy with the personality of a sloth and Jack deserves to be the first Raptor associated employee to have his image and name hung from the rafters.

AllStar Weekend In Toronto

Richard Peddie has always been against this since it displaces season seat holders. I support him in that. When I was a season seat holder I was always against having the game come here knowing I’d be moved from my sweet lower bowl seat up to the upper bowl and even then that would be lucky since it would be by lottery. Now, however, with Peddie leaving and the season ticket base (and attendance in general) being so poor, a visit from AllStar would be welcomed. You can use Ricoh Coliseum and Direct Energy Centre for the fluffy stuff and ACC for the main acts. Maple Leaf Square would be great for a central hub of activity. MLSE would be happy with the money coming in being all theirs, the league gets the focus of an entire country and it could come at a time when DeRozan, Davis, etc are coming into their own. This city always does “big” well. The world knows it. It’s time to start the ball rolling to bring the main feature of the regular NBA season to a city that would welcome it, revel in it and support it.

+ these trades are not homeruns but…
Delfino for Amir
Turk for Barbosa
Ford for Charlie V

Dookielove

his hate for andrea has him blinded by emo rage.

Tank

Wow, this is a terrible article. Maleko said it well regarding your opinion on BC drafting, not to mention how good he drafted in Phoenix as well. You can say what you want about his moves, trades, etc, but drafting, has been something he’s faired pretty well in.

DeMar didn’t come guns blazing? Really? An alley-oop through the legs dunk is not enough to warrant a perfect score, or AT LEAST beat Griffin’s similar one where he just windmilled it? Heck, Griffin even took more attempts too. Sure, put Griffin in the finals if you have to, but McGee? How was he any less of an underdog that DD was? Did he bring sizzle? Uh, no.

Come on, you know it, I know it, we all know it, DD got robbed, he was just unfortunate that he was in the home stadium of NBA’s golden boy, their marketing product….hey, how does “Slam dunk contest champion Blake Griffin” sound? That’s why.

Sorry man, but this is a terrible article, DD got robbed of the Slam Dunk Contest, and I got robbed of a good read. Just my opinion.

LMFAO

I agree. This dude is way off. Not even worth writing more than this.

wienermobile89

I agree fully with the notion that DD was robbed and the general sense of anger in this post. The commercialization and general shittiness of Griffin’s (over-the-hood-of-a) car dunk left me feeling sososo salty.

I also don’t get why AltRaps is rationalizing DD’s elimination – especially when his argument acknowledges the inherent flaws in the judgement process. For me, the bottom line is DD’s first two dunks combined were better than anybody else’s first two dunks, and I feel it is basically indisputable that one of Serge or Derozan should have been in the finals. Seriously, who thought the three ball dunk was worth more than an 8? Or that Griffin’s take-a-minute-thirty-to-do-worse-version-of-DD’s-first-dunk was worth more than a 7? Or that the only real behind the foul line dunk in contest history was not a 10?

Demar Derozan got stuck with the worst coach possible, the guy didnt know how to get the crowd invovled.. or dress. And agreed, Derozon got ROBBED big time, his two dunks were way better than Griffins at least. He just didnt have any god damn props thats what it came to it seems. Also, to be fair, I think Ibaka got robbed a little as well in the contest.

Yeah this article sucks balls, say what you want about Colangelo or the team, but I think we got a solid start for developing a championship team. Ed Davis has been WAYYY better than expected, and furthermore he is showing maturity and high basketball IQ already! And Demar has impressed ALL of us with how much he has improved, I mean his shot selection and talent are improving each game. Andrea Bargani has shown deficiencies on defence, but he can SCORE, and he provides matchup problems – once reggie evans is back and looking ahead once Ed Davis becomes a talented starter, we wont need to depend on Andrea that much for defence. Bayless has also shown that he is wililng to improve and that his capable of doing so. Hopefully this year we get a top quality draft pick and we can see this team becoming a competitor sooner than expected. You can blame Colangelo for last year’s fiasco, but I think he did what he had to do being a general manager for a big market team like Toronto in which no big star wants to play for; give him credit for at least getting rid of turkoglu and his fat contract

Ambidextrious

Man this season is taking a toll on you altraps. Your way too depressed and a pessimist to be writing. Nobody enjoys what your saying. Its a read but not much of one really. Your such a hater bro

pran

stick to roll call

Hassout

are you for real?

Salspouch

Agreed with most of it, BC sucks, DD talented but seems out of it, enjoy the dancepak dressing as strippers and standing in the aisles, Jack should do every game until hes dead, and always wanted allstar game but don’t really care anymore

FLUXLAND

Alt,

I agree, the “he got robbed” whining is out of control. Regardless of what happened last night, Blake has been dunking in an array of ways and all over the league/players the entire season, DD sealed his faith when he got rejected by the rim the night before. But don’t worry about the extended losing streaks; Bryan called up Stern and got DD in there to give him something to play for during tank season. It’s no coincidence he’s been playing better since he found out he was part of the ASG hoopla and although I was initially against this because it will give him an excuse for the rest of the season, I figured hopefully he gets the needed boost. Plus, he’s hugging everyone after every game – the losing is helping the networking. Either way, how he plays out the rest of the season is the the only thing he should be judged on, this being his 2nd year.

Oh, and I, for one, am relived the chicken incident didn’t happen. Stern had the presence of mind to realize having “Player wins NBA dunk contest whilst jumping over guy in chicken suit”, flashing across the AM newscasts, was not the way to go and thereby sparing Raptors fans years of: “You know… the Raptors.. won dunk contest with the “jump over guy in chicken suit” dunk”.

==
You cannot be serious about Jack. The impromptu alcohol induced karaoke sessions are downright embarrassing. I didn’t think it was possible to get any worst than Chuck, but these two clowns have managed to pull it off.

KJ-B

Yah, but a dunkoff is not about “in game” dunking…

FLUXLAND

That’s like saying the crowd reaction, attempts etc do not play part in the judging. It all matters, whether people like it or not. Bottom line , he had to come up with something exceptional to overshadow Blake’s reputation going into the contest — he had sings with the name of his dunks on them, as if anyone cared or couldn’t remember hearing it. LAME. Again, I’m glad that Chickengate didn’t go down.

KJ-B

With Blake Griffin, what I’m finding is that the hype is bigger that his game… With LeBron James, his game is bigger than the hype–that’s the difference..!

wienermobile89

Wait, what? You think the dunk contest should be a lifetime achievement award? Then we have to strip Nate of his three titles because the man NEVER dunks in games.

FLUXLAND

Umm.. watch some games. Nate was know for dunking over cats while getting offensive boards well before the dunk contest or the NBA.

wienermobile89

Nate is a jump shooter. I understand as a youngin he had a great rep as a dunker (like DD), and he’s obviously had some big time in-game dunks (like DD), my larger point was he is nothing even close to an in game dunking machine (like DD) which you mentioned as the reason DD was always going to lose.

To re-use the lamest fall-back in sports arguments: Ummmm…. anyone who watches the games would know this……

FLUXLAND

OK, so now we go from “NEVER dunks in games” to “I understand” and “obviously he had some big time dunks”

Umm… Nate is 5’9 in high heels, DD is 6’7. Why are we still talking about this?

“he is nothing even close to an in game dunking machine like DD” – that’s just your opinion.
Sorry, at his size DD should have far more impressive dunks on his resume. In this case, Nate impresses me more. And I wouldn’t call DD an in game dunker nor a machine, he scares no one. Maybe an open court dunker, and even then he throws down a mini early LeBron dunk.

You think a guy should get a 10 for dunking from the FT, while his landing sucked and dunk had zero style. Sure, MJ stepped on the line, but he hung in the air for a second, kicked his legs and still landed properly. Again, it’s a lot more than the technicalities.

wienermobile89

I’ve seen you post before. You should know when people are using sarcasm to make a point.

Just a clarification: I said exactly that DD was NOT an in game dunking machine – like Nate wasn’t/isn’t. The “(like DD)”, was meant to say, “(and neither is DD)” Although I can see how it can be read the way you did, that’s my fault for being unclear.

Everything else you mentioned is beside what I was taking issue with: you said you thought because DD hadn’t dazzled in game leading up to the contest he was always going to lose. I agree Nate is a more fantastical dunker, his personality is more suited for the competition, he performed better in the actual contests, etc. etc. – you’ll never hear me say otherwise.

But my point was Nate came in to the comps an equally not-very-prolific in game dunker (although with a similar rep based on a few highlights, and nice hops) and that Nate was able to overcome that by being great in the actual competition – which I think Derozan was last night, while Griffin very much was not.

As for Serge: given the history of the supposed difficulty of that dunk, and the precedent set by people shitting themselves when Dwight did it in a similar way while in front of the line, it deserved a ten. Yes MJ’s was more aesthetically pleasing (I would never say it was better than MJ’s or Doc’s, I said it was “the only real behind the line” ie. he started his jump without his foot in front of the foul line), but that doesn’t diminish Serge’s dunk in my mind.

wienermobile89

I also think this is the last thing I’m going to say about this because in re-reading my post it’s clear this little argument is getting beyond silly.

FLUXLAND

“Fear not those who argue, but those who dodge.”

In

Lol who is this clown, you’re joking right?

KJ-B

Do you even understand who Darryl Dawkins IS in NBA lore???

Anon

altraps, i think u dont have tsn2 or u were watching hockey night in canada and not the dunk contest.

i know this is a losing season, but come on this is expected since we did lose a key guy. if you are too depressed because of the team performance, you should take a break from rr rather than write crap and exaggerations. you do something else in your life other than writing negativity all the time.

Man, how the heck did AltRaps get posting privileges!? Major slip up fellas.

511

What an awkward crap-show that whole thing was. Besides DeMar being easily and clearly the smoothest and best dunker out there last night, the whole WWF-style circus they’ve turned it into has gone so over-the-top-ridiculous, it is – or should be -embarrassing to any half-serious NBA fan.

The silver lining might be DeMar hitting the reset button after being robbed, again, of the dunk-title that should be his. Him tweeting “I’m going HAM the second half of the season Believe that!” sounds good to me. HAM meaning, Hard As a Motherf***er. Like I said, sounds good to me.

JoeBlow

The whole Twittersphere blew up over this debacle! From analysts (Hollinger) to fans (many of them non-Raptors fans/American) to even basketball players (Jered Dudley tweeted the robbery), this thing has been a mess. DeMar’s tweets have been classy, I’ll enjoy watching this kid grow-up. F this article, F the haters!

Mediumcore

Demar represented the Raptors well. If the dunk contest was a seriuos contest it would have been Demar and Griffin in the Finals, but we all know the All Star weekend is about the fans so no big deal for Demar getting robbed. Hopefully it will light a fire under him to play harder in the second half of the season. I have to admit I didn’t think he would improve this quickly at the beginning of the season and am happy to have been wrong.

The progress of Demar and Ed along with Amir’s consistency are things to look forward to as this lousy season progresses. Lets see what the trade deadline brings though Colangelo may stand idle and wait for the off season…sort of puts the TPE in jeapordy to wait that long though. Starting to get the impression they might let the TPE expire in order to get further under the salary cap.

So there is no benefit to letting it expire other than to not spend it? I wonder if they will let it expire and what the fan reaction to that will be. Pins and needles waiting for something to happen before the deadline.

Buschfire

altraps that article was BS.

even John Hollinger from ESPN agrees that It should have been DeRozan and McGee in the finals… and u got mad hate for BC I totally disagree with this article, its more of a personal rant…

Pesterm1

I just thought it was alot more classy how derozan dunked without any props. I mean the show and props are cool but it was abit much, derozan added something new to old dunks, very awesome.

Yermiah

Terrible article, the only thing I agree with is that BC made some mistakes, I dont think that his trades have been that bad, I dont think that he has drafted bad, but he fired Sam Mitchell during the early part of a season and since then it has been all down hill. That was a HUGE blunder, completely messed us up for the last 3 years now. Other than that BC isnt that bad, I like how aggressive and pro active he is, he made some mistakes like turk, but when that deal happened everyone loved it, no one knew how it was gonna play out including him. And btw Demar did get robbed that slam dunk competition was BS, he shouldve atleast made it to the 2nd round, 44 on that first dunk that was just unfair.

drizz

stop hating on altraps you bitches.

http://twitter.com/altraps AltRaps

LMAO…….point made.

I love the easy bait.

Suckers.

Ambidextrious

LOL your kidding me you suck bro, nobody enjoys this. Its clear that you are the undisputed asshole champion of RR. If your doing this to anger people, your an attention seeking whore. You can’t state the facts + include so much BS in all your posts. Your lame dont quit your day job cause you clearly can’t write.

Ayo

And ain’t that the truth, +100000

Ayo

Lol what point made? What point? The only point that you made is that your article sucked, and that you should never be near the internet again, heck, not even a computer!

http://www.facebook.com/christopher.wulfers Christopher Wulfers

Wow you’re a bitter person. Terrible article.

Colonel Hapablap

That dunk contest was the biggest blowjob to Blake Griffin I’ve ever seen…not only did DeMar get robbed, but Ibaka as well. DR J WAS STARING AT IBAKA’S REPLAY AND GAVE HIM A 9 AFTER SEEING IT!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!? I voted McGee just so that Blake “Ego-Trip” Griffin didn’t win.

Rapture

There is nothing that would have made demar win over blake. Like what did you guys expect

Theswirsky

what I don’t get is why so many people care about who does or doesn’t do well/win the dunk contest. Hardly important.

Raptor4Ever

Great Post AltRaps

God Bless Raptor fans, The team is 14-51, the GM has been here for 5 years and we have one of the worst talent levels in th league but they choose to drink the Kool Aid and belive th scrubs here are real talents on this league !!! Open your eyes people, the future of NBA belongs to Westbrooks, Durants, Love, Rose, Wall and… not Amir Johnson and Money Weems.

God bless them. When your expectation are so low, you will be stuck in shitland for ever.

Copywryter

What really brought home how contrived and soulless the dunk contest has become was the brief footage of Larry Nance dunking. Stylish, graceful, and still a nice looking jam 30 years on, but without all this bullsh*t hollywood stuff.

And that Kia car stunt burned my blood. It meant that Blake had to make the second round — either that or they had already arranged for another guy to jump over the car, which I doubt, and if true is somehow worse.

The only positive was the four-man format.

mister_E

I do not know if this article is a joke or not. As somebody who is affiliated with a website devoted to the Toronto Raptors, I would figure that you know that Amir Johnson is from Los Angeles, seems like an obvious choice to me.